Febrtjabt 11, lb87.] 



sci^EJsrcu. 



125 



raents to the Sanitary engineer. On Jan. 10, 1887, 

 five cubic centimetres of sterilized water in a test- 

 tube were inoculated with typhoid bacillus, and 

 exposed to the outer air during the following 

 night at a temperature of 10" F. It was found 

 solidly frozen during the morning. Jan. 11, this 

 frozen mass was thawed, and from it there were 

 inoculated one agar and three gelatine tubes. On 

 Jan. 13 there was a decided typical development 

 of the typhoid bacillus in the agar tube and in 

 two of the gelatine tubes. He says that evidently 

 the vitality of the typhoid bacillus is not destroyed 

 by freezing. 



One of the methods by which infectious dis- 

 eases may find an entrance into a country is ex- 

 emplified in the history of the introduction of 

 cholera into tho Argentine Republic. On Nov. 1 

 of last year, the Italian ship Perseo arrived at 

 Buenos Ayres from Genoa. During the voyage 

 nearly a score of persons had died of cholera on 

 the ship. The ambassador of the Argentine gov- 

 ernment in Italy was a passenger on the ship, and, 

 in the anxiety of the ship's commander to permit 

 him to land without detention, all sanitary rules 

 seem to have been overlooked. The disease was 

 not confined to Buenos Ayres, but was also con- 

 veyed by the same ship to Rosario, some two hun- 

 dred miles farther, vphere there were at one time 

 from twenty-five to fifty deaths daily. The dis- 

 ease still exists in both cities, but is very much 

 less prevalent than formerly. 



THE CONDITIONAL LIBERATION OF 

 PBISONERS. 



The advances making in prison science, — or 

 penology, as some are fond of calling it, — in this 

 country are easily discerned. Not only do the an- 

 nual meetings of the national prison congress at- 

 tract wider attention and attract larger audi- 

 ences, but there is a growing thoroughness and 

 method in the current discussions on prison topics 

 that stamps them as scientific. The reading pub- 

 lic at large, moreover, take an interest in these 

 subjects, for they appeal to them on many ac- 

 counts, — ethical, economic, and philanthropic. 



In the International record of charities and cor- 

 rection has appeared a paper by the editor of that 

 journal, which was read by him before the re- 

 cent meeting of the prison congress at Atlanta, 

 and which not only typifies the scientific method 

 of treating prison questions, but shows its applica- 

 tion to a particularly interesting subject. Mr. 

 Wines discusses, in the article in question, con- 



ditional liberation, or the paroling of prisoners. 

 He points out both the close relation and the dis- 

 tinction between the so-called indeterminate 

 sentence and the conditional discharge of a con- 

 victed criminal under parole, and says, that, 

 while in Europe the tendency has been toward 

 conditional liberation under sentences which are 

 of fixed duration, in the United States we incline 

 to an indefinite sentence. On both continents 

 the first experiments in conditional liberation 

 have been made with juvenile offenders. As 

 early as 1834 the charter of the New York house 

 of refuge contained the germ of the theory of an 

 indefinite sentence, and sixteen years later a law 

 was passed by the legislature of the same state fore- 

 shadowing the principle of conditional liberation ; 

 but both acts referred only to offenders in their 

 minority. 



From the early experience of France, Mr. Wines 

 adduces some significant statistics. In 1833 pro- 

 vision was made that prisoners discharged from 

 la petite Roquette, the Paris prison for juvenile 

 offenders, might be intrusted to a special society, 

 which was authorized to apprentice them and 

 watch over their conduct. The effect of this step 

 was to cause a decrease in a few years of the per- 

 centage of juvenile recidivists from seventy-five 

 to seven per cent. It was then proposed by an 

 eminent judge that the plan which had proved so 

 successful with juveniles be made applicable to 

 adult criminals, but it is only very recently that 

 this was done. 



With respect to adults, the English, in their 

 ' ticket-of -leave ' system, were the first to try con- 

 ditional liberation. Until 1853 this ticket-of -leave 

 provision only applied to convicts shipped to 

 Australia, but in that year it was extended to 

 include convicts incarcerated on English soil. In 

 more recent years the value of the system of con- 

 ditional liberation has been more widely appre- 

 ciated. It was adopted by the grand duchy of 

 Oldenburg and the kingdom of Saxony in 1863, 

 and its success in Saxony was such that it was 

 embodied in the criminal code of the German em- 

 pire, which took effect in 1871. In 1868 it was 

 adopted by a Swiss canton, and in the following 

 year by Servia. Denmark put it in application in 

 1873, as did the Swiss canton Neuchatel. Croatia, 

 and cantons Vaud and Unterwalden, followed, as 

 did the Netherlands in 1881, and France in 1885. 

 In 1883 Japan adopted it, and it is a portion of 

 the criminal codes under discussion in Austria, 

 Italy, and Portugal. The first recognition of the 

 principle of conditional liberation in the legisla- 

 tures of the United States was in 1868, when the 

 state of New York established the Elmira reforma- 

 tory. 



